Canoe - Kayak Sprint World Championships
This must be one of the sporting world’s most event-rich tournaments:
11 Canoe events, 18 Kayak for a grand total of 29 events (men and ladies) plus the 8 Paracanoe events (not yet covered by GSN) making it 37 medal-winning competitions.
Hosting all of this, the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships’ thirty-ninth edition, was the Hungarian city of Szeged. Originally 94 nations indicated their intention to participate and 88 finally competed, in what was also the Canoe-Kayak qualifying stage for the next Olympics.
Up for grabs, 4.797 GSN points, one of the richest bounties of the sporting year.
North-Eastern Europe dominated: Russia won the GSN rankings with 558 points, beating Germany by only 38 points. Hungary was third, Belarus fourth and Poland fifth completing the North European dominance.
It was evenly matched for men and ladies too: Russia won the men’s ranking, ahead of Germany and Belarus, while Hungary beat Germany and Russia in the ladies.
For the complete tables see the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships pages on GSN.
The Per Capita rankings too were a East European affair, with hosts Hungary just pipping Belarus and Lithuania.
Azerbaijan were 4th in per capita terms, thanks to their wonder trio of Sergiy Bezugliy, Maxim Prokopenko and Valentin Demyanenko, who picked up 3 medals each in the Canoe events.
while Max Hoff of Germany became the winningest canoeist with two World Championships titles in succession, in the K1 5.000m.
In the women's competition Hungary's Danuta Kozak was the most successful racer with two gold and a silver medal. Kozák's partner in K-2, Katalin Kovacs, claimed her thirty-ninth and fortieth World Championship medal and surpassed Birgit Fischer's record of 38.
And what about Russia? The overall winners had only two golds, in the men’s Canoe C1 500m with Vladimir Fedosenko, and the C1 4x 200m relay, but scored points in virtually all events across gender, to clinch the Championship title.
